My Essay 03

Title: Why might a care worker support a young person in looking back through their life? How best they might go about this, and what skills and sensitives would they need to employ? We are living in the 21st century with fast train, fast broad band, satellite, less co2 omission aero plane and space shuttle landing on the run way, hybrid car to save the environment, surgery without opening the body by laser etc, etc and many more technologies, inventions and developments by human. How did they achieve this? What make them to do these amazing things? How these happened? The answer is, the pioneers of these developments looked back at previous experiences and the works helped them to bring out all success in their fields. These all can be done by only humans, this is what separates us from animals; because the ability to look back through their works, life and experiences. Here I am exploring in health care, why might a care worker support a young person in looking back through their life? How best they might go about this, and what skills and sensitives would they need to employ? Many children and young persons who need a new family or care support have experienced some degree of neglect or physical, emotional or sexual abuse, and all of them will have experienced loss and separation from their birth family. Even if the children present as happy and smiling, their past experiences will have an effect on their behaviour and development. When a child is born he/she need parental support, when life begins they get support from brothers, sisters, relatives, teacher, and friends and in work place colleagues for better human life. But this is not happening for every child in the world. Some of them are getting better life others do not get, because there are many reasons why parents are unable to care for their children at home. There may be a breakdown in family relations, a family crisis or some children may have been neglected or abused; maybe the parents are suffering from mental or physical health issues, or have drug or alcohol problems. There for the government and other organizations help and assist those who need this essential support for their eternal life. To provide an appropriate support they need to look back through their life, to explore this situation I refer the life story of ‘Jordan Morgan’s ‘(Working with life experience, unit 5, . OU). Jordan, in his past he remembered who his daddy was and what kind of father was he? When his father wanted to take him out he refused to go with him, because he was scared and negative about his father from mum and Nan, this point’s me to the attachment of the relationship with his mother and Nan, as a child Jordan was expecting secure base, but he never got it

from his mother, due to the lack of facilities and family poverty. According to Robyn Fivush; ‘Through the construction of internal working models, the individual carries their early attachment related experiences with them in to future interactions with both the caregivers and others’ (Fivush, 2006, pp.283-4) this is what made Jordan to run away from the foster carers many times, Many of children’s like Jordan will be feeling very insecure and will be worried that things are going to happen again. So when a young person

needs care, the most important thing in care is to have support and recognition of their individual needs and their experiences. This is making a point in Jordan’s current foster life with Bill and Bev. Bill’s help and encouragement made Jordan to write his life story with the help of a support worker. This brought out his self esteem and own sense of who is he? And where he belongs? The obstacles he had been through in his past, why his family was not able to care for him and the reason why he is with Bill and Bev .It made him to establish his future, the attachment and active support brought him to do this. It is understood that you cannot just go into a family and feel like you have been accepted. Young people must be involved and prepare their needs. By looking through these facts, it’s most important to support a young person by looking back through their life history. People have a cultural and family identity, this influences how we see the world, how we interact with others and what we define as important, when people got long illness they are scared to interact with others for example of Mick and Owens’s conversation (unit 5 activity 10.OU). When they were young Owen felt embarrassed and people do not understands his situation, there is no treatment so he didn’t talk about his illness. He felt different when he was ill but Mick felt very normal because his environment also similar. After they were identified the illness Mick was very open about his identity and he found that was not only ill person. Owen hides his identity except his wife and health professionals he knows. This is making sense that people in their different ways find it difficult to handle their identity. By looking back Mick and Owens’s story they got more information about their illness by joining the different groups and they came to understand how important to share with others, when people talk about their past they fear about consciousness, awareness and don’t want to know about themselves to others, some doesn’t know how to start and feel unsafely to speak out this why they need a help. As explained above, to give a prompt care service they may go deep in to person’s life history, according to Ryan and Walker (K101 Res Bk, p00) ‘ the child gets knowledge of past family, way to talk about self, self esteem, establish facts about past and present, hopes/doubts and re future’. So it’s helping to re structure their life with the support of services. To do this you need quality skills such as ‘Time, care full listening, positioning ,straight forward language, empathetic listening, sharing control, using games, drawing pictures and making things’. And finally I conclude the life story of a young person is most important, right to accurate knowledge of past and family, talk about self, a record, self esteem and go forward into future. As Afshan Ahmed says ‘The main principles I think in doing life story work with a child and with a young person in their family is to really start with the child; to be child focussed, and that to bear in mind that it’s the child’s book. It’s not just focussing on the traumatic events but getting a balanced view of the child’s life and having some of those anecdotal stories which are important for us all’.(unit 5 audio 5.2/3)